Archduke Alexander died tragically on 12 July 1795. He was born in Florence as the fourth son of Leopold and Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain, then Duke and Duchess of Tuscany. From an early age, he excelled in the sciences, particularly chemistry, although he was expected to pursue the more traditional path of a military […]
Emperor Ferdinand II was born on 9 July 1578. His father, Charles of Inner Austria, was the younger son of Emperor Ferdinand I, representing a cadet branch of the Habsburgs. The main line appeared safe and secure with Charles’s elder brother Maximilian and his sons, Rudolf and Matthias, who indeed succeeded one another on the […]
Archduchess Anna, daughter of Ferdinand I and Anne of Bohemia, was born on 7 July 1528. As a child, she was educated in music and languages. After long and complicated negotiations in which princes and princesses were moved like chess pieces, Anna married Albert, Duke of Bavaria, just a few days before her 18th birthday, […]
Archduchess Elisabeth, daughter of Emperor Maximilian II and Maria of Spain, was born on 5 July 1554. Among her siblings were the future Emperors Rudolf II and Matthias, and the future Queen of Spain, Anna. She was close to her father, whom she resembled in appearance, character, and intellectual inclinations. At the age of sixteen, […]
Emperor Ferdinand III and his second wife Maria Leopoldine of Austria-Tyrol were married on 2 July 1648. Their union began under a good omen, as the devastating Thirty Years’ War had just come to an end. Ferdinand already had two healthy sons (including the future Emperor Leopold I) from his first marriage, and it was […]
Only three days after commemorating the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo, there is reason to return to them once again – this time to commemorate their wedding anniversary on 1 July 1900. The early days of their acquaintance remain shrouded in mystery, and it is not known exactly when their […]
The retired Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria passed away on 29 June 1875. After being deposed by a group of loyalist conspirators in favour of his nephew Francis Joseph during the revolution of 1848, Ferdinand withdrew into a long and comfortable retirement in the Bohemian countryside. On this occasion, let us break an unwritten rule […]
On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Duchess Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo. The common belief that Franz Ferdinand became heir presumptive to the Imperial throne after the suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf in 1889 is not entirely accurate. In fact, following that tragedy, Emperor Franz Joseph’s brother, Archduke Karl Ludwig, was […]
Archduchess Maria Clementina and Francis, Hereditary Prince of Naples, were married on 26 June 1797. As was rather customary for the Habsburgs, they were first cousins — the daughter and son of Emperor Leopold II and his favourite sister, Maria Karolina, Queen of Naples, respectively. Their union formed part of a larger dynastic strategy between […]
Archduchess Maria Christina, Duchess of Teschen, passed away on 24 June 1798 at the age of fifty-six. She is a strong candidate for the title of the most privileged among the privileged. Maria Christina was the fourth daughter of Maria Theresa, born exactly on her mother’s twenty-fifth birthday. This happy coincidence made her the Empress’s […]
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